This invention relates to the field of forming levees or dikes in connection with growing rice and other crops and other water holding purposes requiring a levee.
The use of levees in a rice field is well-known in the prior art. Various apparatuses have been designed to form such levees so that rice farmers and others having similar irrigated crops will have fewer problems associated with flood irrigation of the entire fields. Reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,568,453 and 3,760,885 as well as the prior art patents cited in these patents which disclose levee or dike forming apparatuses and certain problems encountered in levee forming. Additional known patents are as follows: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,109,393; 2,837,989; 3,012,371; 3,012,615; 3,091,873; 3,121,973; 3,303,799; 3,316,865; and 3,658,135. As far as known, certain problems still exist with such apparatus. One such problem is building a levee of uniform dimension without dips and weak spots in varying soil and moisture conditions. Another problem is the need to maintain earthen levees throughout the tillage and fallow period of the land when the levees are not needed.
Rice or other like crop fields are generally flat and proper drainage of the field to support the heavy equipment used for crop harvesting and field preparation is necessary. During field preparation or tillage, wet spots formed in small depressions along levees may delay tillage work after each rainfall since the field may be too soft for the equipment and may require manual work to drain the soft spots. After planting, hand labor is usually required for levee repair of washouts and the like since the heavy equipment will destroy some of the growing crop. Prior to harvest the irrigating water is drained from the field to enable sufficient drying of the ground surface to support the heavy harvest equipment. If the irrigating water is held in the field from inadequate drainage, the ground surface may not be capable of supporting the harvesting equipment, and repairs of equipment may increase due to the increased demands on the equipment and the harvesting operation may be slowed down resulting in decrease of crop yield, often the field is rutted and made difficult to prepare for the next growing season. When crop rotation is practiced to overcome such problems as infestations of water weeds, it may be desirable to remove the levees to eliminate water retention.